Project Arcturus
Project Arcturus was an attempt by the Ancients to extract Zero point energy from their own universe, with the ultimate goal of replacing Zero Point Modules. Overview Project Arcturus is capable of generating astronomical amounts of energy - Dr. Rodney McKay speculated that at only 50% efficiency, it had power equal to a dozen Zero Point Modules. Unlike a ZPM, which extracts Zero point energy from an artificially-created region of subspace, Arcturus was an attempt at extracting zero point energy from our own universe. In the words of Dr. Radek Zelenka, this could potentially make it as powerful as the scope of the universe itself. It was described as the Ancients' last great discovery after Ascension and the Stargates. The core of Project Arcturus is a small white sphere with six spikes inside a large space. The region is surrounded by a powerful containment field, and Arcturus extracts Zero point energy from within this region. The Atlantis team later revised the process to try and extract Zero point energy from an alternate reality via a Matter bridge, which would solve the exotic particle problem that plagued the original project. Weapon The Doranda outpost featured a powerful weapon capable of destroying a Wraith Hive ship with ease. Unlike many other weapons, as it is directly connected to the power source, it can continuously fire rounds and hence destroy ships easily. Asgard shields can withstand firepower from the weapon. The weapon protected Doranda from Wraith attack and took out an entire fleet of ships. History Circa 10,000 years ago Work on Arcturus began on the world Doranda when the Ancients were already a century into their war with the Wraith. Arcturus was originally intended to power the weapons of the Dorandan people. The scientists who were working on the project did not feel that it was ready to be tested under battle conditions, but they had no choice, and Arcturus failed. Extracting Zero point energy from a region of space randomly altered the laws of physics drastically within that region. This resulted in the continuous creation of exotic particles within the containment field. As they were created in a region with radically different physical laws, their behaviour could not be predicted and the containment field could not contain them - they would breach as hard radiation. During the original test, the Dorandan weapons acted as a release valve in an attempt to prevent a catastrophic overload - using up the excess power by shooting randomly into space. The Ancients working on Arcturus barely managed to shut down the weapon, but it was too late; it had already obliterated the planet's surface and the Wraith fleet in orbit. Due to the automatic containment field adjustment system the Ancients had in place, the overload finally ended on its own with a massive release of hard radiation, which killed the researchers nearly instantly. Current times The Atlantis Expedition discovered the Stargate address of Doranda in the city's database. After the discovery of the Doranda outpost still intact on the planet, Dr. Rodney McKay and a team of scientists attempted to finish the Ancients' work, not knowing about the particle containment problem. In their first power-up, an overload occurred, and the containment field shifted asymmetrically in the direction of the command access tube, killing Dr. Collins who was attempting to manually adjust the containment field. Despite protests from Dr. Elizabeth Weir and various other scientists, McKay was allowed to attempt one last power-up of Arcturus, which he attempted to do by trying to manually adjust the field to compensate for the particles. His attempt failed, and resulted in another overload, which was significantly more catastrophic than the two previous ones. The weapon armed and began firing at random targets to prevent a catastrophic overload. Thanks to intervention from the Daedalus, McKay and Lt. Colonel John Sheppard managed to escape with their lives, but it was too late for Arcturus. Because McKay had disabled the containment field monitoring system, and was adjusting the field manually, there was nothing left in place to automatically shut it down after they escaped. The power source overloaded and caused a massive explosion. While being reprimanded by Weir for destroying "three-quarters" of a solar system, McKay (in his classic pompous precision) objected that it was actually "five-sixths, but it's not an exact science." However, most people simply refer to McKay's failure as "destroying a whole solar system". External links * Category:Ancient Technology Category:Power sources